Why I’m Considering Not Watching Football

For the better part of my life, I have been a football fan. I’ve seen every Superbowl since 1991 and seen quite a few Grey Cups between then and now, too. However, I’m strongly considering not watching football anymore. Based on my previous fandom, this may seem strange. The obvious question follows — why?

Well, I had planned on doing a rather lengthy post (in the same fashion as my American Public Policy series or Psi Phenomena series), but instead, have decided to keep this quite short. Most people know about the injuries that can come from playing football. The more noted injuries are concussions. Of course, concussions happen in sports other than football, but it seems pretty clear to me that of the 4 major sports in America, football is by far the most dangerous.

Plenty has been written about concussions and football over the last couple of years. Here’s a smattering:

Some may point to the injuries in other sports and say that it’s only natural for there to be injuries in football, too — it’s a contact sport. While that’s true, football is a contact sport, how much are we — as spectators — willing to put up with? It’s probably a bit over the top to compare the football of today to what they did in Roman times.

The last point I want to make about this: consider that when you watch something on TV or when you buy something at the store, you are, in a sense, endorsing that program or that product. I realize that for some, there can sometimes be restrictions on what they can or cannot buy. I’d like to think, however, that we can all choose not to watch a sport that we think does not espouse the values we hold to be true.

2 responses to “Why I’m Considering Not Watching Football”

There was another study that came out recently that revealed, "NFL players are three times as likely to die from neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or ALS, than the general population." [Emphasis added]